c u on top - satyabrata dam

If every human heart could become an abode of God then we won’t need to build any more places of worship. Nor would we need to scream out loud God’s name from every corner, since a silent whisper within would suffice.   If the concept and belief of God must exist then let God be like water that we all need to drink to survive irrespective of our colour, caste, language, nationality, economic status, gender or beliefs or like that of air, which again we all must breathe without discrimination to sustain. These are the universal aspects of nature that binds us all into one unified code of life and so should be the idea of God. Instead of dividing it must polarize us into one.   Instead of more bloodshed, hatred and symbolic propagation of God what we really need at this hour is compassion and kindness, acceptability and the willingness to open our minds, hearts and souls to the possibility of oneness in this world. If each one of us capable of feeding just one more outsi...

By the time I turned 13 I had two distinct achievements, firstly I was among India’s top five in under 15 badminton and had already climbed two major Himalayan peaks. I was strong and fit and I realized I must hone my climbing skills further from a climbing school hence found myself at the doorsteps of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling the summer I turned 13. I was underage for the Basic Mountaineering Course so I had to join the adventure course that was meant for mere tiny boppers. I was snooty to the core since I found my fellow course mates hadn’t even seen any snow in their lifetime yet. And there I met the first man to climb Mt Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. And from him I learnt my first lesson in humility and many such things that would come handy in my life long adventure career.   He was an unassuming man of average stature with a smile warm enough to melt glaciers and merry enough to usher spring in arid deserts. At that time he was the Field Director i...

What can I say about mothers and motherhood that hasn’t already been eulogized! Yet on this Mother’s Day I would like to say something. She is the giver of life and everything that follows thereafter. At times harsh, at times kind, at times our worst enemy but mostly our closest ally, she is all that we can ever ask for. I think the greatest gift of being born is that we have a mother. Otherwise being born would lose much of its meaning. Everyone loves their mother I am sure or at least hope and no one can in their right mind do anything to cause her harm or grief, yet at times we end up doing so. And she is always ready to forgive our act and embrace us back within her arms. When the world turns its back to us and we have nowhere else to go, it is to her that we go because she is not only our last refuge but she is the Refuge where we would always have a place. A mother puts her child before and above anything else. Even above her own safety and well being. I don’t know fro...

Why choose happiness when our natural tendency while facing adversity is to succumb to sadness, worry and misery! I agree there is no dearth of reasons to make us sad and miserable. Analyzed properly you will see that life in general offers many more moments for our miseries than happiness. Almost anything can cause us sadness, even when something good happens since the worry of losing it will cause us to grieve in advance. I also feel that from deep within our genetic code we are pre-programmed to feel more sadness than joy through our life. So we can safely assume that sadness is our natural tendency and happiness is something that needs to be forced upon. Yet we all know that no one wants to be sad or miserable. We all want to be happy, yet almost no one is, at least not for long. This calls for conscious proactive and continuous action. Therefore we must choose happiness and choose to be happy despite everything else. Happiness that is linked to something external; be it...

Everest is an apt metaphor for the ideal concept of God and religion. It perfectly demonstrates both: the dilemma as well the clarity. Everest summit to my knowledge has 15 defined routes (perhaps few more than world’s main religions) to the top spread across haphazardly all around the massive pyramid. These routes encompass all the cardinal directions and all the intermediate ones as well. Yet no single route is more or less correct or the only right one to the top. Neither is there any one route that has exclusive right or privilege over the summit domain and it isn’t necessary for other route followers to pay any tax or submission or heaps of praises to any other. To each her own is what we believe. Everyone is free to follow their own routes (path) to the top. All we can say with certainty is if one route is technically more challenging than the others or if another route involves more objective hazards than the rest. And I suppose being the technically easiest routes the So...

As you all know my memory isn’t the strongest part of my constitution so it was quite a task to try and recall what all happened significant enough to be brought out, in the last two years. I can’t guarantee the veracity of all that follows but certainly it’s true to the best of my memory. Now read on.   Traveling – I travelled to 46 countries (including several new ones) across six continents thereby bringing my country tally to 192 technically and 190 officially out of the official UN list of 193 nations. The difference between technical and official being that I have been to two countries physically but not officially. Crossed all the oceans barring the Arctic and Antarctic, by air of course. I am not insane like several of my friends who row or sail across oceans. Must have chalked up enough miles (by air, land and sea using all modes of transportation) to circumnavigate the planet twice at least. And despite all my green activism I must have contributed significantly to glob...

At some point of time in my public life I did make a mention that if I hadn’t uploaded a blog post in 6 months then it should be safely assumed that I had finally crossed the Styx to the other side; which to be fair should have happened innumerable times already, notwithstanding my blog post frequency. Based upon this offhanded or highhanded (whichever you prefer) statement many of my well meaning friends and followers scattered around the planet assumed the obvious. And I do not blame them since that was indeed my desire, to see how the planet reacted to my demise so that I could witness it before I died. Much to my surprise and also some amount of despair, a global hunt ensued to prove the veracity of this assumption either way. Many of my friends (whom others thought had any clue, which they certainly hadn’t) were beseeched or waylaid by strangers at strange places both virtual and real seeking if they knew of my intra or inter planetary whereabouts. Social media (read: t...